


this is a state of grace

by chasingredballoons



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, F/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-25 01:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3791548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasingredballoons/pseuds/chasingredballoons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's like something out of a bad teen movie: the popular cheerleader and the nerdy social outcast paired together for an irrelevant biology project that will probably have zero impact on their final grade. It somehow manages to get even more clichéd when Clarke realizes she might be crushing on the aforementioned nerdy (incredibly cute) social outcast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You Can Hear It In The Silence

**Author's Note:**

> quick heads up that i'm scottish and therefore know next to nothing about american high school, so lmk if anything is wildly inaccurate  
> title from state of grace by taylor swift & [feel free to follow me on tumblr here](http://baumanelises.tumblr.com)

A general rule of high school seems to be that “You will be working in pairs for this assignment,” is usually only regarded as a bad thing when it’s followed up with “And before you all start getting excited, I have taken the liberty of picking your partners for you.”

Which unfortunately, is the exact sentence that has just come out of Mr Kane’s mouth. God. Not even a week into senior year and Clarke is already in danger of being forced to work with someone she can’t stand.

The usual level of unimpressed grumbling that happens whenever a teacher decides the best way for the class to learn is to pair them up with someone they don’t know or like echoes around the room. Mr Kane looks severely displeased, and continues to talk loudly over the noise, detailing what the two week long assignment and subsequent report entails, concluding it with a charming, “Hopefully none of your reports make me question why I ever decided to teach high school biology.”

“Who hired this douche?” Octavia grumbles under her breath from next to Clarke.

“Now if you’ll all kindly be quiet for a few seconds,” he huffs, glaring around the class before looking back down at the sheet of paper that Clarke has a sinking feeling is about to ruin a few people’s enjoyment of biology forever. “Raven, you’re with Monty. Wells, with Jasper. Octavia and Murphy—“

“Oh Jesus,” Octavia groans, glaring at Murphy when he smiles sardonically at her.

“Harper and Miller, Clarke and Lexa—”

Clarke tunes Mr Kane out as she glances over to the other side of the classroom at Lexa, where she’s sitting next to… Anna? Arya? Something like that, Clarke doesn’t remember her name.

The corner of Lexa’s mouth lifts up into a small half smile, which Clarke returns. Aside from sharing two other classes with her, math and art, Clarke barely knows the other girl. Lexa doesn’t seem weird or rude or anything, she just runs in a completely different social circle from Clarke. From what she’s heard, Lexa is insanely smart and studious, so Clarke could probably do worse for an assignment partner, but she doesn’t actually know anything about her apart from she’s generally quiet and a bit of a loner. The kind of person that douchebag jocks like Murphy like to harass in the hallways.

Speaking of, Clarke spies Murphy swaggering towards them with his usual arrogant sneer on his face.

“Hey princess, grounder pounder,” he greets, and Clarke can almost feel Octavia vibrating from holding back the urge to punch him. “So glad I have the privilege of working with you on this delightful assignment.”

(Whoever named the football team The Grounders clearly didn’t have the foresight to realise the inevitable nickname of grounder pounder that would apply to anyone dating someone on the team.)

“Oh I’m sure you’re looking forward to this just as much as I am, Jonathan,” Octavia replies in the sickly sweet fake voice that Clarke has discovered means she is probably picturing in her head all the ways she can maim Murphy and get away with it.

Murphy’s face sours at the use of his first name, and thankfully the lunch bell ringing saves Clarke from being an unwilling spectator to the inevitable snark-off. She’s just finished packing her stuff into her bag while half-listening to Octavia’s grumbling about the partner from hell, when a voice interrupts them. “Hello.”

Clarke glances up to see Lexa standing in front of her table. She doesn’t think she’s ever heard the other girl speak before; she would’ve remembered how soft her voice is, a stark contrast to the piercing stare of her eyes. “Uh, hey.”

Apparently all Clarke can come up with when talking to a pretty girl is uh, hey. Smooth. She blames Lexa’s eyes. They’re a distracting shade of green.

“So when are you free to start working on the assignment?”

“Nice to meet you too,” Clarke deadpans, raising an eyebrow. Clearly Lexa doesn’t bother wasting time on pleasantries. Clarke supposes that’s a good thing; Lexa might turn out be a boring partner but at least it’s unlikely she’ll slack off and make Clarke do all the work. “Well I have cheer practice after school, so I can’t do today, but tomorrow? We have art class before lunch so we can talk about it then?”

Lexa nods. “Tomorrow sounds good. I’ll see you then, Clarke.”

She spins around and follows her friend out of the door, and Clarke wonders how, in all the various classes she’s shared with her for the past three years, she’s never noticed how pretty Lexa is.

/

“Murphy is a  _dick_ ,” Octavia announces as soon as she walks onto the field after school, Lincoln trotting along behind her. “I am going to fail this assignment, all because Mr Kane, who is also a dick, can I point out, hates me and stuck with me that asshole.”

“He only hates you because Bellamy accidentally set his greenhouse on fire last year,” Harper points out from where she’s helping Maya stretch.

“Exactly!” Octavia squeaks. “That wasn’t even me, that was my idiot of a brother, who doesn’t even go to this school anymore.”

Lincoln wraps his arm around her in support, and Octavia snuggles into him, still grumbling under her breath. He kisses her on the cheek, and Clarke prepares to turn away lest she gets nauseous. Lincoln and Octavia aren’t exactly shy about PDA. She’s lost count of the amount of times she’s witnessed them in compromising situations at parties or movie nights or in empty classrooms Clarke  _thought_  would be a good place to study.

“Anyway,” Octavia says, looking at Clarke. Thank God they don’t appear to want to gross Clarke out too much today. She’s pretty sure they do it on purpose sometimes. “What do you think Raccoon Eyes is going to be like?”

“Who?”

“Lexa. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that girl speak,” Octavia replies, looking slightly concerned. “She seems a little weird. What if she’s like, a serial killer? Or a witch?”

“She’s not a serial killer O, she’s just quiet. Reserved.” Clarke looks pointedly at her. “Unlike some people I can think of.”

Octavia flips her off, and Lincoln turns to look at Clarke. “Why are we talking about Lexa?”

“She’s Clarke’s partner for this stupid biology assignment,” Octavia tells him, the amount of disdain in her voice when she says  _biology assignment_  reminding everyone of her feelings on it.

“Wait you went to middle school with her didn’t you?” Clarke asks, and Lincoln nods. “What do you know about her?”

Harper laughs. “Clarke you’re working on a biology project with her for two weeks, I don’t think you need to know the girl’s whole life story.”

“Uh, I know she’s adopted and that she's friends with my neighbour Gustus, that's it,” Lincoln says, turning to look in the direction of where the football team is gathered when someone shouts his name. “I gotta go now, I’m late for practice, but Lexa’s over there. Just quiz her yourself, Reporter Griffin.”

Clarke turns around in surprise, following the direction that he points in to see Lexa coming out from beside the bleachers, heading in their direction with Anna-slash-Arya accompanying her.

“Hi,” Lexa says when she arrives in front of Clarke.

“Hey,” Clarke replies, slightly confused. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen Lexa within twenty feet of the gymnasium, let alone on the football field. Lexa glances around at the group of people behind Clarke, shifting nervously under the litany of stares and looking mildly uncomfortable in the presence of the other cheerleaders. Clarke turns to fix them with a look of  _go away_ , they dutifully scurry off, and she turns back to Lexa. “What’s up?”

“I’m not going to be in art class tomorrow, I have a doctor’s appointment that they changed the time of, and since I don’t have any study periods tomorrow either, I thought we should probably exchange numbers." Clarke briefly wonders if Lexa is always this forward, before she adds on, "So we could discuss the assignment over the weekend.”

Right. The assignment. That makes sense.

“Yeah, good idea,” Clarke replies before pausing. “Shit, no, I left my phone in my locker, and I just got a new one so I don’t know my own number off by heart yet. Uh, you got a piece of paper you can write yours on?”

Lexa rifles around in her bag for a few moments, before producing a pen. Clarke raises her eyebrows in surprise when Lexa blatantly rakes her gaze across her cheerleader uniform.

“You don’t have any pockets,” Lexa says in explanation, reaching out and wrapping her fingers around Clarke’s wrist to pull her hand up. "Nowhere to put any paper."

Clarke is caught off guard by how soft and warm Lexa’s hand is, so much so that she barely feels the pen scribbling Lexa’s number onto her skin.

“Uh, thanks,” Clarke says after Lexa lets go of her. Lexa recaps her pen, slips it back into her bag, before surveying Clarke with a stare that makes her feel like Lexa knows exactly how warm her skin where Lexa touched her now feels. Clarke swallows nervously, only tearing her gaze away from Lexa’s when she hears Octavia call her name. “Okay well, I gotta go now," Clarke says, with the world's most awkward hand gesture towards the other cheerleader. "But I’ll text you later?”

Lexa nods. “I’ll talk to you then, Clarke.”

She offers a small smile, that makes something twist in Clarke’s stomach — she's probably just hungry; maybe she shouldn’t have declined Finn’s offer of half his sandwich earlier — before turning to make her way back towards the main school building. Lexa’s friend stares at Clarke suspiciously for a few seconds, before following her off the field.

Clarke is busy trying to figure out why she likes the sound of her name in Lexa’s voice, before Octavia is bouncing up beside her. “Hey Romeo. If you’re finally done having eye sex with the wicked witch of the woods, we have a practice to start.”

Clarke stumbles over her own feet as she’s turning round to follow Octavia over to the other cheerleaders. “What— I was not— I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you don’t,” Octavia says in that airy voice that means she doesn’t believe a word of what Clarke said.

“Well her friend clearly doesn’t like me,” Clarke says, trying to change the subject. “If looks could kill, you’d be holding tryouts for a new head cheerleader.”

“Who, Anya?” Oh,  _that’s_  her name. “I wouldn’t take it personally,” Octavia laughs. “Pretty sure she doesn’t like anyone except Lexa.”

/

 **Clarke** :  _hey, it’s clarke. so unfortunately i’m not free over the weekend at all, last minute trip to annapolis to visit my grandparents, is it okay if we meet up on monday instead to start the project??_

 **Lexa** :  _Monday is fine. We both have a study period sixth I think?_

 **Clarke** :  _sixth is good. meet you in the library?_

 **Lexa** :  _I’ll see you then Clarke._

/

Clarke dashes into the library on Monday afternoon, fifteen minutes after she was supposed to meet Lexa. She spots the other girl sitting alone at one of the tables and makes a beeline for it. Lexa lifts her head and regards Clarke with an unimpressed expression, before saying, “I’m honoured you finally decided to grace me with your presence, Your Highness.”

Clarke blinks, not used to that amount of dry sarcasm when it isn’t coming from Raven or Octavia. “Sorry I’m late, Your Majesty.”

Lexa rolls her eyes, before handing her a sheet of paper. “I made a start on the report outline.”

“And by ‘made a start on’ you mean you did the entire thing?” Clarke says, raising an eyebrow at the neatly printed, colour coded sheet of paper. “I could’ve helped.” Lexa shrugs in response and Clarke narrows her eyes. “You know just because I’m a blonde cheerleader doesn’t automatically mean I’m an idiot, I’m just as capable of doing this assignment as you are.”

(Her one C grade tarnishing an otherwise perfect record of A’s in biology happened thanks to Jasper, her lab partner in junior year, assuming that blonde cheerleader equalled  _dumb_  blonde cheerleader, and then proceeding to do the entire report himself because  _it’s okay Clarke, I got it, you can go practice cartwheels_ , which resulted in a subpar report that earned her the first and only C of her academic career. Clarke hasn’t quite let it go yet.)

“We’re in the same biology class Clarke, obviously you’re not an idiot,” Lexa replies without bothering to look up from her notes. “But I had some free time over the weekend. You didn’t. So I made a start.”

Oh.

“What, you thought I was going to do the entire thing by myself?” Lexa asks, sounding unamused. Clarke may have jumped to conclusions with comparing Jasper and Lexa.

Clarke mumbles a quiet apology and they lapse into a slightly tense silence.

However, Clarke has never really been a big fan of silence.

“So what does Miss Lexa Woods do for fun, apart from  _not_  stereotype blonde cheerleaders?” Lexa gives her an unimpressed look at the attempted conversation starter. “What, are you too super serious and stoic to have fun?”

“I like art,” Lexa offers, accompanied by an impressively withering glare.

“We’re in the same art class, I kinda guessed that you like art,” Clarke continues, since Lexa hasn’t explicitly told her to shut up or butt out yet.

“I like photography as well. And reading.” Ah, now reading is something Clarke can work with. She’s about to ask Lexa what her favourite book is when the other girl continues talking. “You don’t have to do this you know. Force conversation,” Lexa explains at the confused look on Clarke’s face. “We’re just project partners, Clarke, not friends.”

How rude.

“Well excuse me for taking an interest,” Clarke huffs. “Analysis questions on photosynthesis aren’t exactly that exciting. And hey, we could totally be friends, you never know.” Lexa raises her eyebrows. She doesn’t seem that convinced. “We could be like, really awesome friends,” Clarke continues, nodding sagely. “And you’re passing up this once in a lifetime chance to get to know the one hundred per cent awesomeness that is Clarke Griffin, all because of what?”

Lexa shrugs. “School hierarchy? The fact that you apparently refer to yourself in the third person?”

“The third person referrals are a bad habit that Clarke is trying to kick, but it’s more difficult that she thought it would be.” Lexa actually cracks a small smile at that. Success. “And since Clarke is head cheerleader, and therefore at the top of the social ladder so everyone has to follow her orders, she says fuck the hierarchy,” Clarke announces, right as the librarian walks past.

The murderous glare and stern lecture about inappropriate language she gets is worth it for hearing Lexa muffle a laugh.

/

Over the next month, Clarke makes several key observations.

One, she should probably send a gift of some sort (anonymously; very, very anonymously) to Mr Kane for pairing them up, because Lexa is a great biology partner. Even if it is a little frightening how focused she gets on photosynthesis.

Two weeks after the assignment gets issued, Clarke smugly waves the report sheet emblazoned with a big red A under Octavia’s nose while the other girl glowers at the C+ decorating hers. She catches Lexa’s eye from across the room and gives her a thumbs up, beaming wildly. Lexa returns it, albeit with slightly less dorky enthusiasm than Clarke. Anya witnesses the whole exchange and rolls her eyes, whispering something to Lexa that makes her flush slightly.

Two, Lexa is not, as Octavia suggested, a serial killer or a practicing necromancer.

She figures this one out when Lexa doesn’t immediately try to kill her when Clarke accidentally spills an entire box of mini powdered donuts all over the passenger seat of Lexa’s car while she’s driving her home after school one day. She’s pretty sure someone spilling several small baked goods all over the interior of an expensive looking car would make  _her_  want to kill that someone, so the fact that Lexa just sighs, glares a little more than usual, and watches Clarke like a disapproving hawk while Clarke vacuums the inside of the car free of icing sugar once they’re at the car wash, means that Lexa probably isn’t going to string her up to ritually sacrifice her anytime soon.

Three, Lexa might not appreciate the Taylor Swift CD that Clarke ‘accidentally’ leaves in Lexa’s car or the large collection of British girl bands that soundtrack their now-frequent study sessions, but she does share Clarke’s love of obscure indie bands, medical procedural shows — the House MD vs. Grey’s Anatomy argument lasts an entire week — and overpriced coffee.

They’re standing in line at the Starbucks a couple blocks from the school, a few days after the biology assignment has been concluded, when Clarke turns to Lexa and blurts out, “We’re friends, right?”

_Smooth Griffin, smooth, that didn’t sound desperate at all._

Without missing a beat, Lexa deadpans, “Of course not, I’m being forced to spend time with you because we’re still paired together for a school project, obviously.”

Four, Lexa is incredibly attractive. It can get quite distracting.

Like, Lexa is hardly the first pretty brunette Clarke has ever met, and the whole brooding badass in black leather thing tends to work in anyone’s favour, but somehow Lexa manages to pull it off even better than anyone else Clarke has spent hours subtly perving on instead of paying attention in class.

Five, that weird sensation she gets in her stomach whenever Lexa smiles or waves at her in the hallways may or may not be butterflies.

(They’re definitely butterflies. An entire annoying swarm of them that have so far ignored Clarke’s wishes for them to pack up and move onto someone else.)

And six, she kind of, maybe, possibly sort of has a huge hopeless crush on Lexa.

It’s incredible — and slightly alarming — how fast it develops.

Clarke has no idea exactly when her feelings starting becoming distinctly more than friendly, but if she had to guess it was probably around the time that she climbed out of her mom’s car after being dropped off outside the school to be met with a far-too-awake-for-8:30am-Lexa, who greeted her with a cheerful  _good morning sleepyhead_  and handed her a blueberry muffin, explaining that, “You texted complaining about skipping breakfast because you slept in, and I happened to be at the coffee shop anyway.”

However she doesn’t actually take notice of the lack of platonic-ness until the moment she realises she hasn’t heard a word of Lexa’s long spiel about which art movement to do her art history essay on because she’s been too busy wondering if Lexa’s lips are as soft as they look.

 _Well_ , Clarke thinks,  _that complicates things_.

/

Somewhere between the extensive panicking of having a crush on one of her friends and the extensive wondering if said friend-turned-crush might like her too, Clarke realises there's always the horrifying possibility that Lexa could be straight.

Although Clarke isn’t sure what would be worse; Lexa being straight, or Lexa being into girls, just not into Clarke.

The next time they’re hanging out — watching Grey’s Anatomy in Clarke’s living room while her mom grumbles about the medical inaccuracies each time she wanders into the room — Clarke casually brings the conversation around to relationships.

After a lengthy rant about the junior year disaster that was Finn Collins, Lexa supplies that she and her then-girlfriend broke up due to distance when  _Costia_  moved away for college at the end of Lexa’s sophomore year.

Clarke manages to contain the urge to leap up into a celebratory dance.

/

The first one to pick up on Clarke’s enormous crush, or at least say anything about it to her face, is Lincoln. They’re in sixth period art class on a Tuesday, and Clarke is splitting her time evenly between concentrating on her painting of a post-apocalyptic landscape, and surreptitiously gazing at Lexa, who’s sitting on the other side of the room engrossed in her own work.

“You’re staring at her again,” Lincoln singsongs under his breath, breaking her out of her Lexa-haze.

Clearly not that surreptitiously then.

“Shut up, no I’m not.” Yes she is.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve caught you staring at her, you know,” he carries on as if Clarke hadn’t spoken. “You do it a lot actually. It’d probably be a little weird if you didn’t look like you were daydreaming about kissing her.”

“I do not stare at her, and I especially don’t stare at her like I want to kiss her.” Yes she does.

Clarke glances up at Lexa while Lincoln is preoccupied squeezing some red paint onto his palette. She feels her face flush slightly when Lexa looks up and catches her staring, and something suspiciously butterfly-like flutters in her stomach when Lexa gives her that small one-sided-smile, before going back to her own painting.

“You look at her the same way Octavia and I look at each other,” Lincoln says, starting up his interrogation again.

“Oh God, I sincerely hope not. You two are disgusting.” Clarke shivers. What a horrifying thought.

Lincoln studies her for a few seconds. “Yeah, it kinda is now that you mention it. Seeing it on someone else certainly puts it in perspective. Octavia and I are gonna have to dial back a bit if that’s how lovesick we look.”

“I am not  _lovesick_ , oh my God.”

“Okay maybe not lovesick as such, but it’s painfully obvious you like her,” Lincoln says, lowering his voice when Clarke kicks him under the table. “Why don’t you just ask her out?”

“Several reasons, first and foremost, she probably isn’t into me like that—”

“I would’ve thought the first and foremost reason would’ve been because you’re not into her like that.”

Clarke turns to glare at him, his annoyingly smug grin making her want to jam a paintbrush in his eye. Or maybe her own eye, so she could escape this hellish conversation. Lincoln can’t tease her about her maybe-crush on Lexa if she’s in emergency ocular surgery, right?

“Shut up. Even if I do have a thing for her, which I am not confirming I do, it doesn’t change the fact that she’s not into me that way.”

“She could be. She doesn’t strike me as the most expressive of people, maybe she’s just good at keeping it hidden.”

“Pretty much every boy except for you, and half the girls at this school have all flirted with me at some point,” Clarke points out, trying not to sound arrogant. It’s just a fact. Not her fault everyone in the school seems to want in her pants. “I like to think I’m pretty good at telling when someone’s interested in me, even if they try to keep it hidden.”

“Does your neck not get sore having to haul that giant head of yours around?”

Clarke ignores him. “And I am almost one hundred per cent convinced she is not into me.” The extra like, point one per cent of her that isn’t convinced Lexa’s not into her is mostly just wishful thinking. “We’ve hung out plenty of times, just the two of us, and she’s never shown any interest, or made a move, and I’ve never even caught her staring at my boobs. Not once." Lincoln laughs, louder than intended, which earns them a suspicious glare from Mr Wallace at the front of the room. "Maybe she just wants a friend. I mean I know I’d want some more friends if the only person I had to hang out with was Anya. And if that’s all she wants, I’m not gonna go screwing that up by professing my giant crush on her.” She pauses. “My fictional giant crush, that is. Because I don’t have one on her. Obviously.”

Lincoln snorts. “Obviously.”

/

Clarke’s idly doodling in her notebook during English class, while at the front of the room Miss Sydney is droning on about symbolism in The Crucible. Next to her, Octavia is muttering under her breath about how  _if this was 1692 Salem I’d accuse her of being a witch_.

Clarke doesn’t even realise the face she’s sketching is taking on a very familiar form until it’s too late, and Octavia is nudging her and whispering, “Is that Lexa?”

Clarke blinks, and looks down at her notebook, where sure enough, in between a doodle of a hot air balloon being piloted by a dragon, and a small cluster of ballet dancing witch hats, is what is clearly Lexa’s face. It’s rough and sketchy, and the frown is a little wonky, but the braided hair and heavy eyeliner is kind of a dead giveaway, so Clarke can’t exactly deny it.

But she tries anyway.

“No,” she mutters, flipping to a fresh page on her notebook and steadfastly refusing to look at Octavia, and the extremely pleased expression that is inevitably on her face.

“Yes it is.”

“I was just doodling.”

“Okay first of all, a doodle is something like a stickman, or a smiley face; that is like the Mona Lisa of doodles. And second, that is totally Lexa.”

Clarke resolutely ignores her, picking up her copy of The Crucible and taking a great interest in reading the blurb on the back. Octavia is wonderfully silent for all of five seconds, before she pipes up again with, “Oh my God you totally have a thing for her don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes you do.”

“What part of no are you having trouble understanding?” Clarke hisses under her breath, trying to pay attention to Miss Sydney’s enthusiasm about seeing Goody Proctor with the devil.

“Are you blushing?” Octavia snickers, the amused glee in her voice grating on every one of Clarke’s nerves.

“No.”

“You’re totally blushing.” Clarke swipes at her hand when Octavia tries to poke at her cheek.

“Octavia, shut up.”

Miss Sydney chooses that moment to tell them both to shut up unless they want detention, which Octavia thankfully does for about ten seconds, before settling back in her chair with a delighted look on her face. “Ah, love is in the air.”

/

Octavia discovering her no-longer-secret crush on Lexa, means that by association, Raven finds out within two seconds of her sitting down at their table in the cafeteria.

“God,” Raven huffs in lieu of a greeting, slamming her tray onto the table dramatically. “Wick has got to be one of the most annoying—”

“Clarke has a crush,” Octavia interrupts Raven’s latest rant about her creepy physics lab partner, dragging out the uh-sound into a long and annoying  _cruuuuuush_.

Clarke groans, and buries her rapidly reddening face in her hands. “No I don’t.”

“Yes she does. You know that Lexa chick that Clarke suddenly keeps ditching us for?” Raven nods, and both of them ignore Clarke’s offended squawk of  _I do not!_  “I caught Clarke drawing her in English.”

Clarke’s still hiding her face, but she can feel Raven’s enormous grin aimed at her. “You drew her? We’ve been friends for years now and I still have to beg you to draw me. I have to say, I’m feeling a little left out here, Clarke.”

“Oh, it gets better,” Octavia continues, stealing a handful of Clarke’s fries, because apparently crush harassment hasn’t fulfilled her daily Annoy Clarke Quota. “Lexa isn’t even in our English class.”

“Wait, you were drawing her from memory?” Raven asks, sounding delighted. “How  _cute_.”

Clarke idly wonders what the likelihood of the ground opening up and swallowing her whole so she can escape this torture is. Hopefully very high. If not, maybe she can stab herself in the neck with the plastic spork. Or drown herself in her carton of chocolate milk.

Clarke lets her hands fall from her face and tries to fix them both with her Head Cheerleader Glare. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have much effect on their dual smug know-it-all grins.

“I can draw both of you from memory, that doesn’t mean I’m secretly in love with either of you,” she points out.

“Yeah but like Raven said, you never do. And you certainly never draw either of us when you’re bored during English,” Octavia says, popping one of the stolen fries in her mouth. Clarke hopes she chokes on it.

“I do not have a crush on her,” Clarke states, as firmly as possible in the hopes they’ll believe her.

(Okay yes, it’s a huge lie, but Clarke isn’t exactly eager to deal with the never ending teasing that she’ll be bombarded with if she admits it. Plus she doubts Lexa’s even interested in her like that so it’s pointless discussing it with the pair of them.)

Naturally, Raven takes Clarke’s statement of  _I do not have a crush on her_  to mean  _I have a really big crush on her_ , and spends the next week exaggeratedly winking and nudging Clarke anytime she spots Lexa coming down the hall towards them, referring to Lexa as  _Clarke’s eyeliner loving girlfriend_ , and asking Clarke if she wants her or Octavia to give Lexa the best friend talk.

What Clarke wants is for both of them to shut the hell up, but unfortunately they don’t grant her that wish. Instead, they take to singing a very enthusiastic duet of I Won’t Say I’m In Love whenever Clarke mentions Lexa in conversation. After the eighth loud rendition of  _face it like a grown up, when you gonna own up that you got, got, got it bad_  in one evening, Clarke realises she should maybe shut up about Lexa occasionally.

“I’m going to murder your girlfriend,” Clarke says as soon as she sees Lincoln in art class the next day. “Just so you have some warning.”

“If this is about them singing that Hercules song whenever you talk about your girlfriend, that was actually my idea,” he tells her, not bothering to look up from his canvas.

Clarke needs new friends.


	2. You Can Feel It On The Way Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [feel free to follow me on tumblr here](http://baumanelises.tumblr.com)

After her last class finishes on Friday, Clarke says goodbye to Octavia, and heads towards her locker. She’s busy packing away the textbooks she’ll need over the weekend, when Lexa appears beside her. “Hey.”

Clarke grumbles back a hello, and Lexa raises her eyebrows. “Someone’s cheerful,” she deadpans, leaning against the locker next to Clarke’s and looking unfairly attractive whilst doing so.

“Did you understand anything from math today?”

Lexa shrugs. “Most of it. Why?”

“Well I didn’t,” Clarke groans, swinging her bag over her shoulder. “I just had English and I spent most of it rereading the notes from math and pretty much none of it makes sense.”

Lexa follows her as she trudges towards the main entrance, hoping that the ominous looking clouds hovering in the sky aren’t going to empty until she’s finished walking home.

“Well if you’re not busy over the weekend, I could help,” Lexa says, reaching the entrance first and holding the door open for Clarke. “You know, if you’d like.”

Clarke pauses and turns to stare at her. “Really?” Lexa nods. “Oh God, Lexa that would be wonderful.” Clarke gets the urge to hug Lexa, but manages to restrain herself. She’s not sure if they’re quite at that stage yet, plus Lexa doesn’t exactly seem like the touchy type. “Seriously, thank you. Does like, right now work for you? Or do you already have plans?”

“Yes, because I’m well known for my socialising and partying at the weekend, aren’t I?” Lexa says wryly. “I assumed that you would have plans—”

“No, no, I’m free tonight,” Clarke interrupts. Friday is generally Octavia and Lincoln’s date night, and Raven mentioned earlier something about having ‘naked plans’ with her current suitor of the week, so Clarke’s only plans were with Netflix and the unopened tub of ice cream in the freezer. “Uh, did you drive?”

Lexa shakes her head. “My dad gave me a ride, he needed the car.” She looks up at the sky and at the steadily darkening clouds. “We should probably start walking now if we don’t want to get soaked.”

Lexa begins making her way down the steps at the front of the school, and Clarke takes a moment to collect herself at the thought of spending time alone with Lexa, resolutely ignores the numerous dirty thoughts that pop into her head at Lexa’s use of the word soaked, before following her.

/

Despite occasionally (frequently) getting distracted by Lexa’s close proximity, three hours and a lot of  _what the hell does that mean_  later, Clarke is actually starting to make sense of the large amount of numbers decorating the textbook page.

“...so then if you just divide everything by two, you get x equals forty five,” Lexa says in conclusion to a very long explanation of question eight of their homework.

“Right,” Clarke says, nodding like she understands. For the most part she does, it’s just Lexa is like five inches away from her and unsurprisingly a lot more distracting up close, which means occasionally Clarke will completely miss something Lexa says because she’s too busy being in awe over the length of Lexa’s eyelashes.

Lexa reaches to turn the textbook page and Clarke’s hand shoots over to stop her, covering Lexa’s hand in the process. “No no no, I think my brain is going to melt if I see the words solve for x one more time. Can we please take a break?” Lexa glances at the textbook, Clarke follows her gaze, and withdraws her arm when she realises she’s basically holding Lexa’s hand. Clarke’s close enough to Lexa that she can see the light pink flush painting her cheeks, and Clarke is almost one hundred per cent sure her own face matches. She clears her throat. “You hungry?”

When she walks into the kitchen, Lexa trailing behind her, there’s a note stuck to the fridge.

_Got called in for an emergency appendectomy, there’s money on the counter for dinner. Love you, mom xo_

“Want to order pizza?” Clarke asks, feeling a little bad that she didn’t even notice her mom wasn’t home. Then again a pretty girl was following her upstairs to her bedroom, so Clarke wasn’t exactly thinking clearly at the time.

Lexa nods eagerly, they get sidetracked from actually ordering from the Domino’s website for a good ten minutes by getting into a heated debate over the morality of pineapples on pizzas, and by the time the doorbell rings with the arrival of the delivery boy, Clarke is starving enough to eat ten pizzas, covered in pineapples or not.

The math is quickly forgotten about when Lexa wins the coin toss for House or Grey’s Anatomy, and Clarke ignores Lexa’s smug grin as she loads up season four of House on Netflix. They make it through approximately ten minutes of episode two before Clarke asks through a mouthful of pineapple-free-pizza, “Is Lexa short for anything?”

“I changed my mind, we can watch Grey’s Anatomy instead if you refrain from asking me that ever again.”

Clarke laughs. “Oh come on, no one names their kid just Lexa. It’s gotta be short for something.”

“Alexandria,” Lexa grumbles eventually, her nose wrinkling in the most adorable way as she says it. “Never really liked it though, so please don’t call me that.”

“It’s not that bad. I mean my last name is a mythological half lion, half eagle hybrid creature. Alexandria has that huge, world-famous, culturally significant library.”

“Griffins are pretty cool," Lexa says, picking up her last slice of pizza. "Even if they do judge my taste in pizza toppings.”

“Somehow I get the feeling you’re not talking about the supernatural anymore.”

“Whatever gave it away?”

/

They’re on episode eight when Octavia texts her later in the evening, a picture of Lincoln asleep on her couch, with the caption  _this asshole fell asleep in the middle of our date, remind me why i’m with him again?_  and Clarke is reminded, not for the first time, of the small bit of jealousy she feels. Not towards either of them specifically of course, kissing Lincoln would be like kissing her own brother, and it’s not like Lincoln hogs all of her Octavia time, but she is slightly jealous of the fact that after Octavia’s two months of crushing on Lincoln in sophomore year, it turned out her crush actually liked her back.

Whereas the person Clarke is crushing on doesn’t appear to return the affections.

It would’ve been so much easier if they had just worked on the assignment for the set two weeks, and then gone back to barely acknowledging the others existence. Or even better, if Lexa was a colossal jerk and Clarke had zero interest in making an effort with her. But despite the stoic and frosty exterior, Lexa is not a colossal jerk, and the more Clarke gets to know her and the more she realises that there’s a lot more to Lexa than leather, braids and a lot of eyeliner, the worse her crush gets.

She knows Lexa’s favourite colour is blue and her favourite animal is a raccoon. She knows Lexa is one of those weirdos that likes pineapple on pizza and she knows Lexa’s Starbucks order. She knows how alarmingly quickly Lexa can wolf down a double cheeseburger at one of the diners downtown. She knows Lexa’s biggest guilty pleasure is binge watching trashy reality TV. She knows Lexa was adopted after her parents died in a car crash when she was two, and that her adoptive parents want her to go to law school, a sentiment that Lexa thankfully shares.

She also knows Lexa isn’t interested in her, but unfortunately, that does absolutely nothing to lessen the intensity of her feelings.

/

It’s still raining by eleven pm, when Clarke peers out of the living room window and asks, “Are your parents coming to pick you up?”

“They’re in Boston for a work convention. That’s what they needed the car for, they dropped me off at school this morning then left to drive there.”

“So how are you getting home?”

Lexa shrugs. “I was just going to walk.”

Clarke stares at her in confusion as she picks up her jacket from one of the chairs surrounding the kitchen table. “Lexa.”

“What?”

Clarke gets momentarily distracted by the adorable look of confusion on Lexa’s face, before she takes Lexa’s jacket out of her hands and puts it back on the chair. “You’re not walking home.”

“Well what am I supposed to do Clarke, teleport? The buses don’t run this late.”

“You live on the other side of town Lexa, I’m not gonna let you walk all that way, in the rain, at night.” Clarke pauses, then before she loses her nerve, adds on, “You can just stay over.”

“I could—” Lexa starts to reply, before shutting her mouth and looking like that was the last thing she expected Clarke to say. “Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t have asked otherwise, would I?” Clarke has no idea where this confidence is coming from.

Lexa looks like she’s pondering it for a few moments, before she smiles shyly, and says, “Okay.” A pause. “You don’t snore do you?”

“No I don’t,” Clarke laughs, nudging Lexa with her shoulder and shooing her in the direction of the stairs.

Once they’re in her room, Clarke watches Lexa’s gaze flick nervously between the bed and Clarke. “Should I, uh, sleep on the floor?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Clarke says, turning away from Lexa to a) rifle through one of her drawers until she finds a tank top and some red flannel pajama bottoms for Lexa, and b) hide the way her face is slowly turning the same colour as the pajama pants. “My bed’s easily big enough for both of us.”

Clarke uses the bathroom first, brushing her teeth and getting changed, and then spends the entire time Lexa’s in the bathroom staring at her bed with a growing feeling of panic, because  _oh God I’m about to share my bed with my crush okay stay cool Griffin_ , before sucking it up and climbing onto the left hand side of her bed.

Has her bed always seemed this small? She’s pretty sure it’s shrunk, just to make things a little more awkward. She groans, and buries her face in her hands. This is ridiculous. She can share a bed with Lexa. She’s shared a bed with Octavia, Raven, and both of them at the same time plenty of times, and aside from one or two accidental boob grazes, there was never any cause for concern.

Then again, the reason there was never any cause for concern is because Clarke never had a gigantic crush on either of them.

The bedroom door squeaks open, and Clarke looks up to see Lexa. Something in her stomach twists at the sight of Lexa wearing her clothes. Her hair is out of its normal braids and Clarke’s never realised how curly it is before. Lexa looks softer than normal, and it just makes Clarke want to kiss her more than usual.

Which is  _really_  not something she needs to be thinking about right now.

Lexa clambers into the bed next to her, snuggles down under the blanket and yawns a sleepy sounding  _goodnight Clarke_ , and Clarke falls asleep facing away from Lexa, trying to ignore how the usual butterflies in her stomach have evolved into something that feels more like a flock of hummingbirds on speed.

/

There’s a warm weight pressing against Clarke’s chest, that she registers even in her half asleep state.

She opens her eyes, blinking blearily at the too-early sunlight streaming in through her window, and looks down to see the top of Lexa’s head, which— okay, this is unexpected.

Lexa is cuddling her. Like, Lexa is actually pressed almost completely against Clarke’s side, warm and soft, her head is resting on Clarke’s chest, her breath tickling the skin left bare by Clarke’s tank top, and the smell of her perfume is assaulting all of Clarke’s senses, making her head spin slightly.

Waking up with her crush cuddling her certainly isn’t the worst morning Clarke’s ever had. She briefly wonders if this is all an extremely vivid dream. Then decides that is isn’t, because if this were a dream, there would probably be significantly less clothing involved. And they wouldn’t be just sleeping.

Lexa shifts, mumbling something quietly in her sleep, the arm flung across Clarke’s stomach tightens around her waist, and she’s mildly concerned that her thundering heartbeat is going to wake Lexa up.

For several selfish seconds, Clarke lets herself pretend that this is a thing she has the privilege of doing; falling asleep with Lexa and waking up with her sprawled on top of her. Lets herself enjoy the feeling of Lexa pressed against her, of Lexa’s breathing, of Lexa’s fingers brushing against the small expanse of skin where Clarke’s top has ridden up sometime in the night.

Then she realises that that’s maybe kind of weird, probably some kind of invasion of Lexa’s privacy, and that Lexa likely has zero idea she’s a sleep-cuddler considering how much she likes her personal space when she’s awake. Carefully, so she doesn’t wake her up, Clarke wriggles out from underneath Lexa and heads to the bathroom to pee and to try and calm her racing heartbeat. When she comes back, Lexa has shifted so she’s sprawled out on her front, hogging Clarke’s entire bed, and has also moved so she’s cuddling Clarke’s bright pink pillow instead of Clarke herself.

She watches Lexa sleep with a dopey fond smile on her face for a few seconds, before she realises how creepy she’s being, and heads downstairs to make breakfast, trying not to think about the fact her pillow is now going to smell like Lexa.

Clarke is relatively sure she’s completely and utterly one hundred per cent sunk when, about thirty minutes later, Lexa stumbles into the kitchen, yawning. A cute sleepy Lexa, with dishevelled hair, wearing Clarke’s pyjamas, who mumbles a good morning to Clarke and then proceeds to fall asleep at the kitchen table while Clarke makes pancakes.

/

Clarke is definitely sure she’s completely and utterly one hundred per cent sunk when Lexa ambushes her at her locker on Monday morning, presenting her with a box of four of the sprinkle donuts Clarke loves — that Clarke has only mentioned are her favourite a grand total of  _once_  — as a thank you for letting her stay over and the subsequent breakfast.

The smile Lexa gives her after Clarke hugs her in thanks, a rare genuine smile and not her I’m-friends-with-you-so-I’ll-pretend-your-joke-was-funny smile that Clarke is much more familiar with, makes Clarke wonder if she ever really stood a chance.

/

 **Clarke** :  _happy halloween!!!!!_

 **Clarke** :  _i can’t convince you to come to the party tonight then?_

 **Lexa** :  _Nope_

 **Clarke** :  _boo_

 **Lexa** :  _You already knew parties aren’t really my thing._

 **Clarke** :  _:(_

 **Clarke** :  _have fun trick or treating with anya (even tho the party would be like 10 times better)_

 **Lexa** :  _Have fun ingesting your body weight in tequila :)_

/

Raven’s parties have a tendency to get messy by like nine pm, and Halloween is no exception. Clarke starts the night as Red Riding Hood, ends it as a giggling, singing hot mess in a red cape. She’s fairly certain that at one point, she spent at least twenty minutes waxing lyrical to a complete stranger about how pretty Lexa’s eyes are.

When she drags herself into school the next morning — Halloween falling on a Sunday is the universe’s idea of a cruel, cruel joke — Lexa’s waiting at her locker, two takeaway cups of coffee in her hands.

“Thanks for the texts last night,” Lexa greets.

“Oh God. I honestly do not want to know,” Clarke groans, slumping against her locker and happily accepting the cup that Lexa hands her.

“And the phone call.”

“Lexa I said I didn’t want—”

“You left me a voicemail where you sang a very moving solo version of You’re The One That I Want from Grease,” Lexa informs her cheerfully, and Clarke wants to disappear into a hole in the ground. “I think I’m going to set it as your ringtone.”

“I hate you.”

Clarke is really wishing she had taken a leaf out of Octavia’s book and just ditched school to spend the morning sleeping off her hangover, if only to delay this conversation.

“You might want to check Facebook as well, maybe do some untagging,” Lexa continues, holding up her phone to show Clarke a beautiful photo, that she has absolutely zero recollection of, showing Raven, the girl Raven spent the majority of the party making out with, and a girl Clarke has never seen before in her life wearing her red cape, all simultaneously doing body shots off of Clarke.

Lexa just laughs at the horrified squeak that comes out of Clarke’s mouth, but even underneath the embarrassment that flares up at some of the pictures Raven has so rudely tagged her in, Clarke feels her hangover starting to lessen slightly at the sound of Lexa’s voice. And really, it’s sappy crap like that, that informs Clarke of just how out of hand her feelings have gotten.

Well, that, and her choice of song to serenade Lexa with.

She’s never drinking again.

/

Lexa likes to pretend she doesn’t find Clarke’s endless supply of bad jokes funny.

 **Clarke** :  _did you hear about the agnostic dyslexic insomniac?? he stayed up all night wondering if there was a dog_

 **Clarke** :  _what do you say to comfort a grammar nazi?? they’re, their, there_

 **Clarke** :  _how do you kill a vegetarian vampire?? a steak to the heart_

 **Lexa** :  _This is not why I gave you my number Clarke._

 **Lexa** :  _What’s the difference between America and a yogurt? If you leave a yogurt alone for 200 years it’ll develop a culture._

Somehow, Clarke doesn’t quite believe her.

/

Octavia invites herself over one Sunday afternoon in mid-November while Clarke has the house to herself, texting  _open your door bitch it’s raining_  in lieu of a polite  _I'm outside can you please come down and let me in even though I showed up uninvited_ , and then complaining that Clarke took too long coming down the stairs.

“Don’t you have a boyfriend you could be annoying right now instead?” Clarke asks with a raised eyebrow as Octavia makes a beeline for the fridge and helps herself to some soda like she owns the place.

“Had plans with the rest of the football team. Don’t you have a girlfriend you could be annoying right now? No? Maybe you would if you woman-ed up and asked her out.”

Clarke glares at the open fridge door that Octavia’s still hidden behind. “She’s studying for a chemistry test first period tomorrow.”

"You knew who I was talking about and I didn’t even have to mention her name,” Octavia says with a smug and knowing smirk as she reappears from behind the door. “Still pretending you don’t have a gigantic crush on her, I see.”

“Shut up,” Clarke grumbles instead of bothering to deny it.

Later, Octavia’s busy painting her nails, using a biology textbook she should be reading as a coaster to make sure she doesn’t spill nail polish all over Clarke’s bed (again) while Clarke scrolls through iTunes, Spotify and 8tracks. After the sixth Ed Sheeran song blasts from the speakers, Octavia puts the top back on the bottle of nail polish and looks at Clarke. “Okay, what are you doing? Cause if you’re trying to tell me something with all these cute songs, I hate to break it to you Griffin but you’re not really my type.”

Clarke rolls her eyes, picking up the CD case she spent most of the morning decorating and tossing it towards Octavia.

“What’s this?”

“What does it looks like, genius?” Octavia raises her eyebrows in question, waiting for an explanation. “It’s Lexa’s birthday tomorrow.”

“And you’re making her a mix CD?” Octavia asks after stifling a laugh. “You realise that they're like, the universal sign for  _we’re just friends but I actually have a really big crush on you_ , right?”

Clarke is well aware of that fact, thank you very much.

“This is not one of those kind of mix CDs okay, this is a  _we’re friends and therefore it’s my duty to expand your weird hipster music taste_  kind of mix CD. She made me one for my birthday, I'm just returning the favour.”

“Whatever you say, Casanova.” Octavia doesn’t bother to muffle her next laugh as she stands up to returns the nail polish to its usual place on the mess that is Clarke’s desk.

She flops down behind Clarke on the bed, resting her chin on her shoulder as she looks at the laptop screen critically. “If you want my opinion—”

“I don’t.”

“You should put that one on,” she says, pointing at You Are In Love by Taylor Swift, and laughs when Clarke picks up a pillow and smacks her in the face with it.

/

“The six texts saying different variations of happy birthday, one of them in French, all sent at one minute past midnight weren’t enough, now you’ve resorted to stalking me?” Lexa says in lieu of a greeting when she reaches her locker the next day, where Clarke has been waiting for the past ten minutes.

“Charming,” Clarke huffs, but hands over the neatly wrapped present anyway. “Happy birthday grumpypants.”

A beat passes after Lexa tears the paper off and sees the “Lexa’s super awesome birthday mix CD” printed out above a drawing of a griffin and a raccoon watching Grey’s Anatomy, before she yanks Clarke forward into a hug. Clarke is taken off guard by it — they might be close friends by now, but Clarke can count the number of times they’ve hugged on one hand — and as soon as Lexa’s arms are wrapping around her shoulders, her heart rate rockets into an embarrassingly fast pace. After a moment of being frozen in surprise, Clarke hugs her back and tries desperately to ignore how good Lexa feels pressed against her.

Lexa pulls back, staring at the CD like it’s the most valuable gift she’s ever received, before her gaze flickers up to Clarke’s face. “Thank you Clarke,” Lexa says softly, and Clarke is hit with the overwhelming desire to kiss her. Well, more overwhelming than usual.

She uses the brief moment of Lexa concentrating on the CD’s track list scrawled on the back to attempt to get her breathing back under control and remind herself that kissing her friend in the middle of a crowded high school hallway is not a good idea.

She changes the subject instead. “So you got any big birthday plans later?”

“Oh just the usual,” Lexa shrugs as she turns to place the CD into her locker carefully. “Wild house party, Gus bought out the liquor store, Anya mentioned something about getting strippers.”

Clarke blinks. “Um… Have fun?”

“I’m kidding,” Lexa laughs. “Anya’s joining my parents and I for dinner at the Ark Restaurant in downtown later. It’s kind of a birthday tradition we’ve had since we were seven.”

Clarke pointedly ignores the way her heart stutters and skips at the rare sight of Lexa smiling widely. She really needs to leave before she does something embarrassing. “Okay well, I’ve gotta go now if I’m gonna be on time for English. Just wanted to give you your present now. Good luck on your chemistry test though, and I’ll see you in math.”

Lexa looks like she’s contemplating something, before she swoops forward and presses a fleeting kiss to Clarke’s cheek. “See you then, Clarke,” she says, before walking off towards the science department, seemingly completely unaware of how easily she has turned a stock-still Clarke’s brain to mush.

(Octavia lasts three minutes of class before she whispers, “So how did lovergirl like the proverbial love letter?” and Clarke contemplates actually smacking her in the face with her copy of The Crucible, before deciding that it’s not worth the inevitable detention with Miss Sydney, and getting sent to Principal Jaha’s office.)

/

It’s difficult enough for Clarke to focus on math homework the majority of the time anyway, but with Lexa sprawled out and taking up half the bed while she works on her own homework, it’s downright impossible.

She feels a little guilty watching Lexa like a creep — objectifying her, essentially — when Lexa is completely oblivious to it, but she can’t really help it. The tank top Lexa’s wearing is a nice change from her usual button up shirts and cozy looking sweaters, but it also has the disadvantage (advantage?) of making Lexa more distracting than normal. Clarke had no idea someone’s arms could be quite so attractive, and she does her best to concentrate on the homework instead of daydreaming how they would feel around her while she kissed Lexa.

(She doesn’t succeed.)

“What did you get for question thirteen?” Lexa asks, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion as she chews on her pen and stares at her paper.

“Um.” Clarke glances down at her own paper, where she’s made it through precisely three of the twenty questions assigned. And she’s pretty sure the second one is wrong. “I haven’t gotten that far yet.”

Lexa looks up, gaze flickering from Clarke’s face down to her paper and then back up. “Something on your mind Clarke?”

_Yes. You. Specifically kissing you. Preferably naked, but I can work with ‘mostly unclothed’ if you’d prefer._

Clarke sighs, putting her pen down since it’s highly unlikely she’ll be able to concentrate enough to do anything more than count past ten while Lexa’s still around. Still in her bed.

“No, I’m fine. The words  _advanced integration_  don’t inspire that much excitement is all.”

Lexa mutters what sounds like  _speak for yourself_  under her breath. What a nerd.

“So are you coming to the game tomorrow night?” Clarke asks, trying to distract herself from perving on Lexa.

“The football game?”

“No, the big ping pong game.” Lexa gives her an unimpressed look that she is far too used to by now. “Yes the football game.”

Lexa snorts. “Unlikely. Football doesn’t really appeal to me.”

“You should come.”

“What’s in it for me?” Clarke isn’t sure if she’s imagining the slightly flirtatious tone to Lexa’s voice. Her usual stoic expression hasn’t shifted, and she isn’t even looking at Clarke.

“You get to see me?”

Clarke tells herself to shut up.

“I see you five or six days a week anyway,” Lexa replies, scribbling out an extremely complicated looking equation that Clarke is not looking forward to encountering whenever she gets round to the rest of the math homework.

“You get to see me in my cheerleader outfit?”

Clarke tells herself to shut up  _again_.

“I’ve seen you in your cheerleader outfit before,” Lexa points out, tapping out something on her calculator. “It might be cute, but it’s not cute enough to get me to come to a football match.”

Clarke bites her lip hard to stop the surprised squeak from coming out. Lexa glances up, a smirk tugging at her lips at the shocked look Clarke knows is on her face before she goes back to the homework. Lexa casually changes the subject to something about Malteser — Lexa’s enormous fluffy samoyed puppy that tried to eat Clarke’s shoes the first time she visited Lexa’s house — as if she hasn’t noticed the slight existential crisis Clarke is having on the other side of the bed at Lexa’s flirting.

Cause that was flirting wasn’t it? Like, Lexa called her cute. And her tone of voice and accompanying smirk made  _cute_  sound less like the  _you’re so cute I want to pinch your cheek_  kind of cute and more like the  _you’re so cute I want to do you instead of advanced integration_  kind of cute. That definitely counts as flirting, right?

/

“You didn’t mention your not quite girlfriend was coming,” Octavia pipes up while they’re taking a break from stretching, about fifteen minutes before the football game is due to start. She muffles a laugh when Clarke nearly gives herself whiplash jerking her head around to scan the crowd of people starting to congregate on the bleachers. Sure enough, Lexa’s there, holding a giant red foam finger and looking slightly awkward next to Raven and her gargantuan tub of popcorn.

(Lexa's choice in company could easily end in disaster. She prays to every God she can think of that Raven keeps her big mouth shut about Clarke’s gigantic crush. And that she doesn’t tell Lexa all about the Junior Year Spring Break Incident. She doesn’t want Raven scaring Lexa off with tales of Clarke’s drunken antics.)

“There has got to be a fingering joke in here somewhe— ow!” Octavia squeaks indignantly when Clarke elbows her in the ribs.

Lexa catches her eye and waves with the hand covered by the foam finger. Clarke watches in amusement as Lexa frowns at it, yanks it off and hands it to Raven, before waving normally. Clarke waves back, a ridiculously sappy smile on her face.

“Oh my God you two are disgusting,” Octavia gags. “Just ask her out already.”

“We are just friends,” Clarke insists, her face slowly warming up to match the scarlet of the cheerleader uniforms.

“Okay Griffin, I’m sure she only came tonight cause she suddenly realised how much she enjoys watching a bunch of sweaty dudes running into each other on a muddy field. I believe you.”

“No you don’t,” Clarke grumbles, hoping that lip-reading isn’t a hidden talent of Lexa’s and she will forever be oblivious to this conversation.

“Yeah I know, I was lying,” Octavia says brightly, looking between Clarke and Lexa with interest. She laughs. “Man you have it so bad for her.”

Whatever half-hearted objection Clarke was about to come up with is cut short by Monty, the less annoying of the two male cheerleaders — the more annoying one being Jasper, much to Clarke’s displeasure, but Coach Indra scares her too much for her to protest — bouncing up to them to inform them that the game is about to begin.

/

They win, and word quickly spreads that the post-victory party is at Finn’s. Octavia and Clarke split up, agreeing to meet back in the parking lot once Octavia has fetched Lincoln and Clarke has found Raven. It’s freezing outside, and Clarke wishes she had the foresight to bring a jacket. There’s various people milling around in the parking lot, and while she doesn’t see Raven anywhere, she does spot a familiar figure leaning against her car.

“Hey,” Clarke says once she reaches Lexa, trying to tone down the dopey wide smile she can feel threatening to spread across her face.

“Hey,” Lexa replies. “Raven just went inside to look for you and Octavia. Apparently Monty can give the three of you a ride to the party at Finn’s.”

“Ugh, I came out here to look for her,” Clarke huffs, wrapping her arms around herself and glaring resentfully at Lexa’s warm looking jacket. On second thought, the shiver that goes through her body might have less to do with the cold and more to do with the way Lexa’s eyes rake over her. The cheerleader outfits don’t exactly leave a whole lot to the imagination.

“You’re not here to see me? I’m hurt,” Lexa says, placing one hand over her heart dramatically while she opens the passenger door of her car with the other. She leans in, Clarke deliberately averting her eyes to examine the starry night sky instead of staring at the patch of exposed skin from where Lexa’s shirt rides up, and she reappears holding a hoodie that Clarke recognises as hers. “Here. You left this at my house when we were studying for that biology test last week, and you look like you’re in danger of contracting frostbite.”

“Thank you,” Clarke smiles at Lexa, gratefully taking the proffered hoodie and tugging it on. After sitting around in Lexa’s room all week, Clarke isn’t surprised to discover that her hoodie now smells like Lexa. She pulls it tighter around herself. “And hey, I wasn’t even expecting to see you here. I thought football wasn’t your thing.”

“It isn’t. Cheerleaders, on the other hand,” Lexa says airily.

Clarke is very glad she isn’t currently trying to eat or drink something, because she would probably be choking very unattractively on it right now after that comment. “Really?” She says, and before she can tell herself not to, adds on, “Any cheerleader in particular?”

The corners of Lexa’s mouth turn up. “Maybe.”

A voice that sounds suspiciously like Octavia’s trills  _I told you so_  in Clarke’s head.

“Hey guys.” Speak of the she-devil. Octavia pops up beside them, glancing between them with barely concealed smug glee. Clarke shoots her a look that she hopes conveys her message of  _shut up or I’ll smother you with your own pom-poms_. Octavia smiles at Lexa before turning to Clarke. “Monty wants to know if you need a ride to the party, and if you do, we’re about to leave.”

“Uh…” Clarke says, intelligently. She would rather just waste her evening watching TV and eating her body weight in junk food with Lexa, and she’s pretty sure both Octavia and Lexa know this. She’s trying to figure out how to get out of having to attend the party when she realises her excuse is standing right next to her. “Actually Lexa and I kinda already have plans.”

Lexa, thankfully, appears to pick up on what Clarke’s up to, because she doesn’t ruin the facade by saying  _we do?_  or  _no we don’t, she’s just trying to get out of going to the party_.

“Oh really?” Octavia asks, doing an awful job hiding how pleased she looks. Clarke hopes she has no aspirations of getting into the acting business.

“Yep,” Clarke says, nodding like a damn bobble head doll. “Made in advance. So you know, I can’t really ditch her.”

“Of course not.”

“Yeah, we’ve had these plans for a week now,” Lexa finally pipes up, backing up Clarke’s unelaborate lie.

Clarke’s convinced Octavia hasn’t bought a single word of this lame excuse, but she just says that it’s okay and that she’ll see Clarke on Monday. She says goodbye and heads across the parking lot, to where Clarke can see Monty and Raven hovering with a few other people.

Once she’s out of earshot, Lexa turns to Clarke and asks, “You’re not going to the party?”

“Parties aren’t really my thing.”

“Um, yes they are,” Lexa says with an amused smile.

“Okay fine,” Clarke huffs. “Maybe I would just prefer to spend my evening with you rather than listen to the rest of the cheerleading squad stroke the football team’s collective egos. Don’t let it go to your head.”

Lexa opens the passenger door of her car again, mock bowing. “Your Majesty.”

/

Lexa drives them back to an Abby-free house, Clarke quickly changes out of her cheerleader outfit (nearly tripping on her way up the stairs when Lexa calls from the kitchen that she doesn’t mind at  _all_  if Clarke keeps it on) and now they’re on the sofa, sides just barely touching as they share a huge bowl of popcorn.

Grey’s Anatomy is playing on the TV and Clarke is decidedly not shedding a few tears at the season eight finale. Apparently she’s not the only one; she hears a quiet sniffle from next to her that Lexa tries to disguise with a cough.

“Are you crying?” Clarke asks through a mouthful of popcorn.

“No,” Lexa grumbles, surreptitiously wiping at her eyes. “Allergies.”

“You’re allergic to cats. I don’t have a cat,” Clarke points out dryly.

“Shut up.”

“How cute,” Clarke teases, nudging Lexa in the side.

“I said shut up.”

“You’re adorable,” Clarke laughs, leaning back to avoid the retaliation jab when she pokes Lexa in the side again.

“I am  _not_  adorable,” Lexa huffs. “I am mysterious, and vaguely threatening, and totally badass.”

“No one looks badass wearing fluffy bunny slippers Lexa.”

Lexa takes one of the slippers off and smacks Clarke on the arm with it, ignoring Clarke’s offended yelp while she gets up to change the DVD to season nine. Clarke stares shamelessly at her ass when she bends down, quickly averting her eyes when Lexa stands back up, although the smug look on Lexa’s face makes her think she’s maybe not so subtle.

When she flops back down onto the sofa, they’re closer than before, their entire sides pressed together. Clarke tries not to shiver at the feeling of Lexa’s bare skin brushing against hers, but fails miserably at disguising the hitch in her breath when Lexa snuggles closer and rests her head on Clarke’s shoulder. She can barely focus on the screen when the smell of Lexa’s perfume and the feel of her body pressed against Clarke’s is making her head feel fuzzy, and oh God, Octavia is right.

She really does have it bad for Lexa.

It’s late, but neither of them can be bothered moving, so Lexa ends up falling asleep on her shoulder, and Clarke follows quickly after. When she wakes up again in the middle of the night, the television’s been switched off, the hall light’s still on and someone — Clarke assumes her mom and not a deranged serial killer that broke into the house — has draped a blanket over both of them.

She should probably wake Lexa up so they can go sleep in an actual bed, since her sofa is not the most comfortable of places, but that would involve disrupting Lexa's arms from where they're wrapped around her waist, which is not something Clarke wants to do. So instead, she just snuggles contentedly into Lexa's side and lets the sound of Lexa's steady breathing lull her back to sleep.

(Clarke makes a mental note to interrogate her mother the next morning; she wouldn’t put it past her to have placed the blanket over them and then taken a photo of them cuddled up together for future embarrassment purposes.)


	3. You Can See It With The Lights Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so.......it has been a while. heh. sorry bout that. [come yell @ me on tumblr here.](http://lauracarmillas.tumblr.com)

The second weekend in December, Octavia’s parents are away on a business trip to Los Angeles, conveniently the same weekend her older brother Bellamy comes home from college to visit. So naturally, there’s a big party on the Saturday night.

Clarke’s sifting through various outfits trying to decide on what to wear, when her phone buzzes with a text from Lexa, asking Clarke what her plans for the evening are. Clarke replies telling her about the party, adding on an invitation to go with her, which she isn’t expecting Lexa to take, but she may as well ask.

Her phone lights up a few minutes later.

**Lexa** : _Sure. Need a ride there?_

**Clarke** : _agreeing to a high school party? who are you and what have you done with lexa?_

**Clarke** : _but yes I’ll take that ride :)_

**Lexa** : _Hilarious. I’ll text you when I’m on my way over._

Lexa looks like she’s regretting her decision to attend the second she climbs out of her car and looks up at the Blake household. There’s loud, bass-heavy music coming from inside, someone that Clarke eventually identifies as Jasper is asleep in the front yard’s vegetable patch, and there’s a couple that she doesn’t recognise aggressively making out on the front porch.

“Remind me why I agreed to this again?” Lexa grumbles under her breath while Clarke ushers her up the path and through the front door.

“Because I’m awesome company,” Clarke beams at Lexa, reaching down to lace their fingers together before she can think better of it, and tugs Lexa through the heavily populated hallway into the kitchen.

“You want a drink?”

“Just one, since I assume I’m going to be chauffeuring your drunk ass home later,” Lexa replies, looking mildly concerned at the sheer volume of alcohol littered across the table. “I don’t really drink that much anyway.”

“Yet you’re at a party thrown by one of the cheerleaders and her collegiate brother on a Saturday night,” Clarke points out, ignoring Lexa’s jab at her sobriety.

“Yeah well,” Lexa shrugs, accepting the red cup of orange juice and vodka that Clarke hands her, sniffing it suspiciously. “You asked me to come, so.”

Clarke tries really hard not to read into that too much.

Two hours and several shots (one of which Clarke dropped onto the kitchen floor when Lexa innocently asked if Clarke wouldn’t prefer to do them as body shots, since that’s all her tagged photos on Facebook appear to consist of) later, Clarke has commandeered one of the sofas in the Blake’s living room, Lexa on one side of her and Monty sitting in Miller’s lap on the other.

Raven’s already disappeared off somewhere, and Octavia is too preoccupied with shoving her tongue down Lincoln’s throat on the other sofa to pay any attention to Clarke, so for once she doesn’t have to deal with suggestive looks from either of them when the alcohol starts to hit her and she slumps against Lexa’s side, giggling at the awful joke Bellamy’s in the middle of telling.

The sudden affection doesn’t seem to bother Lexa in the slightest; her arm slips around Clarke’s waist to help keep her upright, and Clarke kind of loses focus on everything happening around her for a few minutes at the feel of Lexa’s hand against the patch of skin left bare between her top and her pants, only breaking out of her stupor when loud cheers greet Finn’s suggestion of seven minutes in heaven.

Since everyone seems to have forgotten they are no longer in middle school, the table in the middle of the room gets cleared of the large amount of empty red cups cluttering it up, and an empty bottle of Budweiser gets ceremoniously placed down in the middle of it.

Bellamy spins first, landing on Echo, one of the cheerleaders. Seven minutes and a lot of hollering and whooping later, Octavia spins and lands on Murphy. He looks slightly put out when Octavia wrinkles her nose in disgust and immediately passes, chugging straight from the Forfeit Bottle that Bellamy hands her. Harper lands on Finn and one of Bellamy’s college friends lands on Maya before the bottle is being shoved into Clarke’s hand.

She detaches from Lexa’s side, places the bottle on the table and spins, watching it whirl around and praying in equal amounts that it does and doesn’t land on Lexa.

Of course, like a scene from a dumb rom-com, it does.

Lincoln detaches from Octavia's mouth long enough to give a very flustered Clarke an encouraging thumbs-up while she and a red-faced Lexa get propelled towards the closet by an enthusiastic Finn. Octavia just laughs at her.

The hall closet is small and cramped, and when the door swings shut on the wolf-whistling and cheering from the others, it’s also dark. The single lightbulb flickering dimly doesn’t offer a whole lot of light, but Clarke can just make out Lexa in front of her, shifting...nervously?

Clarke is going to have to subtly mention getting a bigger hall closet to Octavia and Bellamy’s parents the next time she sees them, because her mind is draining of rational thought frighteningly fast due to Lexa’s close proximity. Which is what she blames for the moronic way she stutters out, “So, you come here often?” in a voice a few octaves higher than normal.

Thankfully, it seems to ease the weird tension in Lexa, and she laughs, shoving gently at Clarke’s shoulder. Clarke doesn’t really move much, the closet is so tiny that all Lexa’s shove really does is press her a bit harder against a very ugly fur coat that Clarke prays no one wears in public.

“Um, so, you know we don’t actually have to kiss right?” Much as Clarke would enjoy kissing Lexa, she’s obviously not going to make her do anything she doesn’t want to.

Lexa’s quiet for a long moment, before she says, “I know.” Another long moment, slightly more awkward than the previous one since Clarke has no clue what to say to fill it, although she gets the impression that maybe she should stay quiet since Lexa looks like she’s struggling with whether or not to say something. “But, uh…” Lexa trails off, staring at her with an unreadable expression, and Clarke feels like she’s missing something incredibly obvious.

“I know we don’t have to, but at the risk of making things extremely weird for a good length of time… I, um, I want to,” Lexa murmurs quietly, and Clarke feels her mouth drop open unattractively. She knows she heard Lexa correctly, but it takes a minute for the words to sink it. That Lexa apparently wants to kiss her. That this isn’t just a one way thing.

“I, uh,” Clarke stutters stupidly, and the corners of Lexa’s mouth turn up in fond amusement. “You do?”

"I’ve wanted to for a while now actually," Lexa says, fidgeting with her hands slightly, an indication of just how nervous she must be. Lexa does not fidget. "Oh God, I’ve made things weird now, haven’t—”

“No, no you haven’t, definitely no weirdness at all,” Clarke cuts her off. “It’s just...you like me too?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Lexa nods. Then looks confused. “Wait, I like you _too_? As in, this is mutual?”

“Yes. Yes yes, very extremely absolutely one hundred per cent mutual,” Clarke babbles like a moron.

Lexa starts fidgeting again, and Clarke reaches out to lace their fingers together. Lexa’s hands are warm against hers, and it does the job of stopping the nervous twitching.

“This isn’t a joke, right?” Lexa blurts out abruptly.

“What?” Clarke blinks in surprise, slightly hurt by the question. “No, of course not. Is that really what you think of me?”

“No, no, that’s not— It’s just…" Lexa trails off, looking the most vulnerable Clarke has ever seen her. "You’re amazing.”

“True,” Clarke interrupts.

“And sweet and kind and distractingly attractive, and you could probably have anyone you wanted—”

“Also true,” Clarke interrupts again.

“Clarke, shut up,” Lexa huffs, trying to glare at Clarke, but the smile that’s on her face kind of lessens the impact of it.

“Sorry," Clarke smiles, squeezing at Lexa's hands. "Do continue.”

"I just never really thought someone like you would be interested in someone like me." Ninety per cent of the time Lexa is unapologetically blunt and straightforward, so it's very disconcerting to hear her sound so small and unsure of herself.

“Well the fact that you’re you is kinda why I like you,” Clarke replies immediately, smiling encouragingly — she hopes — at Lexa and stroking her thumbs over the backs of Lexa’s hands. "I can prove it to you if you'd like."

Clarke inches closer, because they’re doing an awful lot of talking when they could totally be kissing, and Lexa puts a hand on her shoulder to stop her.

“As much as I want to, and believe me I do, in all the times I’ve imagined our first kiss, none of the scenarios included being half-drunk in a closet containing a really ugly fur coat, because of some stupid party game.”

Clarke takes a moment to relish the fact that Lexa has apparently thought about how she wants their first kiss to go — multiple times — before noting that Lexa has a point. The Blake’s hall closet isn’t exactly the most romantic spot, even disregarding the ugly fur coat.

“I’m not drunk!” Clarke protests. Lexa gives her a pointed look. “Okay I’m a little drunk. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to kiss you. It’s not the alcohol or the party game that’s making me want to kiss you, it’s you that makes me want to kiss you.”

That definitely sounded better in her head.

“That’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me,” Lexa deadpans.

“Well if you’ve got any bright ideas, I’m all ears,” Clarke huffs, briefly wondering if she tripped on her way to the closet and hit her head, and this is all some kind of very realistic hallucination, because she’s actually arguing with Lexa about how their first kiss should happen.

This is not how she expected this party to go at all, but she’s definitely not complaining.

“Well,” Lexa bites her bottom lip, looking equal parts nervous and cute. “Since I don’t want to keep you, or myself, waiting that long, we could go to the winter formal on Friday together.”

“The Snowflake Ball? You don’t even like dances.”

_Clarke shut the hell up she’s trying to ask you on a date here._

“Well I think given the right company, I could warm up to them. So,” Lexa smiles, dragging out the _o_. “Is that a yes?”

Again, Clarke gives consideration to the thought that this isn’t actually real, that maybe someone slipped something into her drink earlier, and she’s actually dreaming all this while passed out in Octavia’s bed, because Lexa is actually asking Clarke to go to the winter formal with her. As a date. “Yes.”

The smile Lexa gives Clarke makes her swoon like a character out of a damn Nicholas Sparks novel. Octavia and Raven are going to have a field day once Clarke relays this whole story to them later.

Clarke makes to open the closet door, since no kissing is going to occur and their seven minutes must nearly be up, when Lexa grabs hold of her wrist and pulls her back. “We still have a minute or two.”

Clarke’s brain promptly goes blank when her back connects with the door and Lexa is suddenly very, _very_ close. “But you just said—”

“I know.” Clarke thinks she’s going to pass out when Lexa presses a kiss to her cheek. She had no idea a damn kiss on the cheek could make her go weak at the knees, but apparently it’s very possible. “But I only have so much self-control—” A kiss gets placed on her jaw. “And there’s places that I can kiss—” Lexa’s lips brush against the patch of skin just under her ear. “That aren’t your mouth.” Down to her neck, and Clarke’s hands fly up to grasp the back of Lexa’s navy jumper. Clarke wonders if Lexa a) realises how dirty that sentence sounded, and b) can feel how hard Clarke’s heart is beating when she doesn’t say anything else, just continues to trail gentle kisses down Clarke’s neck.

This is a special kind of torture, Clarke thinks, having Lexa so close and being unable to kiss her — really kiss her— and she’s almost relieved when Bellamy bangs on the door and yells for them to take their probable making out somewhere else so other people can use the closet.

/

So far, the Snowflake Ball is nothing special.

The gymnasium does look pretty great, all decked out in fake snow and snowflake decorations — although the enormous inflatable snowman in the corner is maybe a bit overkill — and everything is lit up by blue and white lights. Coach Indra is keeping watch over the large bowl of punch to make sure no one spikes it, which is disappointing, but also to be expected after Murphy somehow managed to sneak an entire litre of vodka into last year’s junior prom. The DJ thankfully appears to have turned on the radio a few times in the last year, and Clarke is busy humming along to the Avicii song playing while she examines the large cupcake selection at the food table when Raven appears beside her.

“Hey,” she says, plucking the blue-frosted cupcake Clarke is holding right out of her hand. “Where’s your Winter Soldier?”

Winter Soldier is a new one. Makes a nice change from Raccoon Eyes.

“She just texted, said she and Anya are on the way now so she shouldn’t be long.”

Raven hums in response, taking a bite of the pilfered cupcake. “So I know this might come as a bit of a shock to you,” she says with her mouth full. “But underneath all the insults and sarcasm, I guess I do care about you a little bit—”

“Gee, thanks.”

“And I know O and I have spent the majority of the last couple months teasing you and mocking you at every opportunity for your enormous-obvious-can-be-seen-from-a-space-station crush on Lexa, but I’m glad you’re happy. That she makes you happy. You deserve it,” Raven says, bumping her shoulder into Clarke’s. “And you know, if she ever hurts you then Octavia and I will have no reservations at making her life a living hell,” she adds on, far too cheerfully for someone who’s threatening probable bodily harm.

“Yes, I have no doubt.”

Raven beams at Clarke, kisses her on the cheek — probably leaving a huge smear of bright blue frosting — and wanders off to go bother someone else, leaving Clarke alone with the cupcakes for a few minutes before she feels a tap on her shoulder.

If Clarke was the kind of person to subscribe to overused romantic cliches like _you take my breath away_ , the phrase would certainly apply to when she turns to be met with Lexa in a knee-length ivy green dress, loosely curled hair tumbling over her bare shoulders.

“Hey,” Lexa says, lips pulled into a smile that makes Clarke feel dizzy.

“Hey,” Clarke stutters. “You look, um— Wow.”

Unsurprisingly, words are proving to be difficult when Lexa looks like _that_.

“You look very _um wow_ too, Clarke,” Lexa mocks playfully, and Clarke’s heart skips a beat when she smiles and holds out her hand. “You want to dance?”

As if on cue, a slower song starts playing, an acoustic version of some One Direction song Clarke vaguely recognises.

“Did you plan this?” Clarke asks once she remembers how to speak, gesturing in the DJ’s direction with one hand while accepting Lexa’s proffered hand with the other.

“Unfortunately no, I can’t take credit for this,” Lexa says, tugging Clarke onto the dance floor and finding them a free spot amidst all the other slow dancing couples. “Just good timing.”

Lexa turns to face her, stepping closer and slipping her arms around Clarke’s waist, and Clarke winds her arms around Lexa’s neck in response, willing her heart to stop hammering quite so loudly when Lexa smiles at her like they’re the only two people in the room.

It’s a little awkward at first, since the past few months Clarke had actively tried to avoid touching Lexa in any way possible lest she accidentally blurt out all her feelings, except for a few hugs and that one heart-stopping kiss on the cheek, and now she has all of Lexa pressed against her, which kind of throws her off her game a little bit, but eventually, they manage to fall into a steady rhythm of slow swaying.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Clarke eventually murmurs.

“Well I wasn’t going to stand my date up now, was I?” There’s a bit of internal screaming that occurs at the word _date_ that almost makes Clarke miss the soft way Lexa adds on, “So am I.”

They slow dance through the next Ed Sheeran song, Lexa grumbles when the one after is Taylor Swift, but doesn’t try to move away, and then Sixpence None The Richer follows that. The whole time they’ve been getting steadily closer, Lexa’s arms tightening around Clarke’s waist, and she’s pretty sure she forgets how to breathe when Lexa presses their foreheads together.

Having Lexa close enough to be able to feel the shaky exhales of breath against her mouth, while a song literally called Kiss Me plays in the background, snaps the last vestiges of Clarke’s self control. Slowly, she starts to lean in, and their noses brush together for a brief moment, before Lexa, inexplicably, is pulling back.

(And honestly, Clarke probably isn’t going to make it to college because the anticipation of kissing Lexa will have killed her by then. Hopefully they spell her name on her gravestone right. None of this Clark nonsense.)

“Wait, just— not yet,” Lexa says, staring at Clarke’s mouth in a stark contrast to her words. “I want to show you something first.”

/

It’s snowing when Lexa leads Clarke outside.

The courtyard at the front of the school is deserted since everyone is inside, and there’s Christmas lights strung up in the trees, illuminating everything and reflecting off the light dusting of white on the ground. It’s all very romance-movie worthy.

Lexa reaches down to tangle their fingers together, pulling her towards one of the trees so there’s a little bit of shelter from the snow, before one arm circles around Clarke’s waist and pulls her forward until they’re pressed together, and Lexa’s other hand comes up to cup her face. Clarke shivers, and it’s definitely not from the cold. She has to remind herself to breathe when Lexa’s eyes drop to stare at her mouth, flicking back up to her own eyes briefly in a non-verbal question.

“I think this is the part where I’m supposed to say something romantic,” Lexa murmurs, her thumb brushing along Clarke’s cheekbone. “But I don’t really feel like doing a whole lot of talking right now.”

“Oh I think that was plenty romantic,” Clarke laughs, before Lexa leans in and — _finally_ — kisses her.

In true clichéd fashion, the rest of the world melts away; the muted music coming from inside and the cold snowflakes Clarke can feel landing on her arm, until all that’s left is the warm press of Lexa’s lips against hers.

(Well, that and the internal screaming of _I’m kissing Lexa oh my God Lexa is kissing me best day ever oh my God_.)

Lexa’s lips are unbelievably soft, and the tiny noise of contentment she sighs into the kiss when Clarke lets go of her waist in favour of cupping her face makes Clarke’s head spin.

Lexa pulls back briefly, their noses brushing while she tilts her head slightly before she’s kissing her again, soft brushes of her lips that make Clarke’s heart thump erratically against her ribs. Her hand moves to the back of Clarke’s neck while she deepens the kiss, opening her mouth slightly so she can suck gently on Clarke’s bottom lip.

“I can’t believe you brought me outside so we could have our first kiss in the snow,” Clarke laughs once the kiss breaks. She presses a quick kiss to Lexa’s mouth just because she can, before leaning their foreheads together. “Who knew you were such a secret romantic?”

Lexa narrows her eyes. “Be quiet.”

Clarke takes a brief second to gloat at how breathless Lexa sounds, and then she kisses her again.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Clarke registers that they probably shouldn’t stay out in the snow much longer unless they want to catch hypothermia, but her mind goes blank when Lexa’s tongue slides along her bottom lip, and she’s suddenly perfectly content to stay out in the freezing cold as long as Lexa keeps kissing her like that.

/

“Lexa— mmf hold on,” Clarke squeaks, voice going embarrassingly high when Lexa trails kisses along her jaw.

“You’re wasting valuable kissing time with talking, Clarke.” The kisses start to move down Clarke’s neck, and she promptly forgets what she wanted to ask Lexa. “Your mom said she’d only be out thirty minutes, so that means we only have ten minutes left before she returns, and then I have to make polite conversation with her while pretending like I haven’t had her daughter straddling my lap for half the afternoon.”

“Lex— _ahh_ ,” Clarke groans halfway through the name when Lexa sucks on her pulse point.

“Why yes, Mrs Griffin, Clarke and I did have a good time studying. What were we studying for? Oh, just biology. We have an anatomy test tomorrow.”

“Okay, please stop talking about my mother while you have your hands under my shirt.”

Lexa laughs, but dutifully pulls her hands and mouth away from all parts of Clarke, leaning back and looking up at her expectantly. “So what are you so eager to talk about that you feel the need to cut into our kissing time?”

“Well I, uh—” Clarke trails off, getting distracted by noticing how kiss-swollen Lexa’s mouth is. “Are we dating?”

Lexa looks confused. “Yes?”

“You don’t sound convinced about that.”

“Well I was under the impression that we were, yes.” Lexa frowns up at her. “Did you think we weren’t?”

“I don’t know,” Clarke replies, and Lexa’s face falls slightly. “I mean, I want us to be, cause I like you, like a lot—”

“I like you too,” Lexa interrupts. “Like, a lot.”

“And I know we hang out a lot, and we’ve spent the last three days since the Snowflake Ball also kissing a lot, but we also haven’t talked about all the kissing and I just wasn’t sure where we stood with each other.”

“I didn’t realise it was unclear,” Lexa says, her face softening. “But you’re pretty much the only person I willingly spend time with apart from Anya, and Anya and I do not spend our free time like this,” she says, leaning back so she can gesture at Clarke sitting in her lap. Clarke is thankful Lexa and Anya do not spend their time in a similar fashion. “And just to clarify, I certainly don’t do this—” Another gesture. “—with anyone else either.”

“Just me?”

Lexa rolls her eyes fondly. “Yes, just you.”

“So we’re dating.”

“It would seem so.” In the back of her mind, Clarke already knew this, but having it confirmed makes her stomach somersault with happiness.

“You’re my girlfriend.”

“Lucky you,” Lexa says, falling back against the pillows and then tugging on the front of Clarke’s shirt until she follows, bracing herself on her forearms so she doesn’t squish Lexa. “Now that that’s settled can we go back to making out?”

/

**Clarke Griffin** is now in a relationship with **Lexa Woods**

December 19 at 7:34pm • Comment • Like

**Octavia Blake** , **Monty Green** and 30 others like this.

**Raven Reyes** : about time!!!

**Bellamy Blake** : i thought you were already together at the party oops

/

It’s not like Clarke _intentionally_ plans for Abby to find out about her and Lexa by having her tapping on the passenger window of Lexa’s car and interrupting their goodnight-kiss-turned-fifteen-minute-makeout-session. That’s kind of just how it happens.

“Mom,” Clarke squeaks, glancing towards the driveway which, if she hadn’t been too busy contemplating just asking Lexa to drive to the nearest empty parking lot and pulling her into the backseat, she would’ve seen her mom’s car sitting there. “You’re home early.”

“The surgery I was scheduled for got pushed to tomorrow,” her mom replies, eyebrows raised impossibly high as she glances between a red-faced Clarke and an equally red-faced Lexa. "I did try calling to let you know."

Oh God.

“You, uh—” Clarke clears her throat and gestures at Lexa, who looks like she’s remembering how practiced Clarke’s mom is with a scalpel. She isn’t entirely sure what it says about her as a person that she finds terrified-for-her-life Lexa incredibly adorable. “You’ve met Lexa?”

“I have. Several times, in fact,” Abby says, thankfully not commenting on the stupidity of Clarke’s question.

“Well, uh, there may have been a recent development in our...friendship,” Clarke mumbles, feeling the option of Lexa spending the night whenever she wants dwindling by the second. There isn’t even a tree outside her window that Lexa can scramble up to sneak in through her window.

“So I can see. Hello Lexa.”

“Hi Mrs Griffin,” Lexa squeaks, waving awkwardly.

“It’s getting late,” her mom says, despite the fact that 7:46pm is flashing up on the car’s dashboard. “You should get going, Lexa. Clarke and I appear to have some talking to do.”

Her voice doesn’t really leave much room for argument, so Clarke gives Lexa a quick chaste kiss on the cheek, before scrambling out of the car with a _see you at school tomorrow_ , awaiting her fate.

Really, this could be a lot worse. At least they were both clothed the first time Lexa ‘officially’ met Clarke’s mom, unlike when her mother walked in on Clarke and Finn. That particular meeting had a lot more threatening and glaring involved. Then again, her mom hadn’t known Finn at all before Clarke started dating him, whereas Clarke and Lexa have been friends for a couple months now, and her mom is probably going over all the many many times Lexa stayed over, or vice versa, in her head with a mounting sense of horror.

Her mom chauffeurs her into the house and through to the kitchen, before regarding her with an unimpressed look, eyebrows raised and arms folded. “Thank you for letting me know that you two were dating.”

Resisting the urge to say _anytime mom_ , Clarke puts on her best puppy dog eyes and says, “I’m sorry. Please don't be mad, I was going to tell you eventually, but—”

“Clarke, it’s okay. I'm not mad, I promise.” her mom interrupts, waving her hand and smiling. “Do I wish you had told me? Yes of course I do, but to be honest I kind of had my suspicions anyway.”

“Hold on, you knew?“ Clarke asks, ignoring the unnecessary-but-appreciated parental approval in favour of focusing on the fact that apparently even her own mother knew.

“Well I wasn’t completely sure, but I definitely am now,” her mom says, still looking slightly uncomfortable at having caught her daughter making out with someone. “I’m not blind, and subtlety isn’t exactly your strong suit honey.”

Has it been blatantly obvious the _entire_ damn time that she’s had a crush on Lexa?

“You should invite her for dinner tomorrow,” her mom says, and Clarke gets the feeling it isn’t a suggestion.

“Mom she’s been over for dinner plenty of times by now.”

“Yes, but not as your girlfriend,” her mom says brightly, and Clarke just knows that her mom is busy mentally cataloguing which embarrassing baby photos to show Lexa as soon as Clarke is out of the room.

Clarke groans. “Please don’t embarrass me.”

Her mom kisses her on the forehead and ruffles her hair. “I can’t promise anything sweetheart.”

(Clarke is pretty sure her mom is won over when, upon opening the door to Lexa the next evening, the first thing Lexa says is, “I brought dessert,” and holds up a pan of chocolate brownies. _Homemade_ chocolate brownies.)

/

Clarke visits her grandparents and various other members of the extended Griffin family in Annapolis from the twenty-third to the twenty-sixth, but the rest of her Christmas break is spent splitting her time evenly between Lexa, and Octavia and Raven.

Her Lexa time is filled with dates at Starbucks or the art gallery or museums, movie nights that turn into making out on the couch, romantic walks in the park in the snow while Lexa grumbles about the cold, trips to the cinema that turn into making out in the back row, and every other romantic cliché possible.

They go on a few double dates with Lincoln and Octavia, to see the new Marvel movie and then for frozen yogurt afterwards despite the fact it’s like, negative fifty outside, or to the amusement arcade, where Clarke spends a fortune trying to knock over some (probably rigged) metal cans with a bean bag so she can win Lexa a stuffed raccoon.

Somehow, they all manage to wedge themselves inside a photobooth — after Clarke beats Octavia at air hockey by ten points, something she will be gloating about for the next decade — and attempt to get at least one semi-decent photo where no one’s blinking, or yawning, or looking in the wrong direction.

They eventually succeed on the last try, getting a photo where they’re all smiling at the camera which Octavia promptly posts on Instagram with the caption _my main bitches_ , but it’s the second last one that Clarke likes better. Octavia and Lexa are both smiling at the camera, Octavia’s pulled Lincoln’s beanie down over his face so all there is to be seen of him is a grinning mouth, and Clarke is smiling like a complete lovestruck fool at Lexa.

It’s the first time that she thinks that she could maybe be a little bit in love.

Octavia and Bellamy throw a New Year's Eve party, and unsurprisingly, sneaking off to a secluded corner of the Blake’s backyard to make out with Lexa at midnight is the kind of sappy romantic crap that Clarke rolled her eyes at during years past, but finds it absolutely wonderful now she actually is in a relationship.

Anya begrudgingly warms up to Clarke, partly at Lexa’s huffed insistence of _it’s not too much to ask for my girlfriend and best friend to not look like they want to kill each other is it?_ and partly because Anya and Clarke turn out to make an excellent team at Mario Kart, beating Lexa and Gustus by an embarrassingly large number of points one evening.

However, Clarke admits she’s still a little terrified of Anya when, after Lexa and Gustus disappear into the kitchen to get more snacks and to lick their wounds after suffering another humiliating defeat on Rainbow Road, Anya turns to Clarke and informs her, in frightening detail, what will happen if she ever,  _ever_ hurts Lexa. Apparently the Costia breakup was completely out of the blue, which Clarke was unaware of — the casual way Lexa had first mentioned it during Operation Find Out If Lexa’s Straight Or Not, Clarke was under the impression it was an amicable and mutual breakup. Clearly not — and Anya is dead set on never seeing Lexa that upset ever again.

Lexa never mentions it, but Clarke’s pretty sure Octavia and Raven give her the best friend talk when the four of them go ice skating, Raven watching from the side and taking photos while Lexa and Octavia skate smug circles around Clarke, who spends most of her time falling on her ass with all the elegance of a baby giraffe, and then for hot chocolate, where Octavia and Raven spend the better part of two solid hours telling Lexa every embarrassing story they have on Clarke. Including the Junior Year Spring Break Incident. At one point, Clarke comes back from the bathroom and Lexa looks slightly paler than usual, while Octavia and Raven are both beaming happily in the way they do right after threatening to maim someone.

/

One of the perks of having a single parent with a demanding job that requires her to be on call frequently, is that Clarke often has the house to herself, free to completely disregard her mom’s rules of _bedroom door stays open_. Which is especially conducive to situations such as this, with the movie paused, the laptop kicked unceremoniously down to the bottom of the bed, and Lexa on top of her trailing kisses down her throat.

“What, uh—“ Clarke swallows a whimper when Lexa sucks gently on her pulse. “What time are your parents expecting you back?”

Lexa chuckles breathily against her neck, pulling back to look down at Clarke with a mischievous grin. “Well, when you told me that your mom was on the night shift, I may have told my parents that I was staying at Anya’s tonight.”

Oh.

_Oh._

Clarke is too busy with the ten million dirty thoughts suddenly flying through her mind that it takes her a few seconds to catch on that Lexa’s talking again. “And obviously I don’t have to stay if you don’t want me to,“ Lexa says, uncharacteristically nervous. “And if I do then we don’t have to do anything you don’t want but—“

“I do,” Clarke blurts out stupidly, and Lexa raises her eyebrow. “I mean, I do want you to stay.”

Clarke gives brief consideration to embarrassing herself some more by continuing to talk, before deciding that actions speak much, much louder, so she reaches up to pull Lexa down into a heated kiss.

(Clarke remembers to give Anya a high five the next time she sees her. Anya looks momentarily confused, Lexa turns bright red and hisses _Clarke!_ under her breath, and Octavia howls with laughter at the look of disgust that makes its way onto Anya’s face once the penny drops.)

/

The first time Clarke tells Lexa she loves her is, well…kind of by accident.

About a month after Valentine’s Day — which conveniently lined up with Clarke’s mom working a night shift at the hospital, which aided Clarke’s romantic plans of fucking Lexa on the sofa. And in the shower — they’re at Octavia’s for a movie-slash-video-game night, Clarke sitting in Lexa’s lap while she battles Lincoln for first place in Mario Kart.

“Ugh,” Lincoln huffs petulantly when Clarke’s Yoshi goes zooming across the finish line while Lincoln’s Bowser mistimes a jump and goes sailing off a cliff. “Clarke cheated!”

“How can you even cheat at Mario Kart?” Lexa asks, and gets ignored.

“Clarke did not cheat,” Clarke crows gleefully as Lincoln stomps off into the kitchen to whine to Octavia. “Clarke is just way better at this than you.”

“God, I can’t believe you still do that,” Lexa says, poking Clarke in the side until she shuffles off her lap to sit next to her. “Refer to yourself in the third person. You did that the first conversation we ever had.”

“Clarke remembers.”

Lexa looks unimpressed. “Remind me why I’m dating you again?”

“Because you love me,” Clarke replies, unthinkingly, stiffening slightly when she realises what she just said.

Lexa hums in thought, tilting her head to the side like Clarke hadn’t just dropped the L-bomb with no warning whatsoever. “I suppose so.”

Clarke gapes at Lexa like a stunned goldfish, wondering if she’s mishearing things. “You love me?”

“Of course I love you, Clarke,” Lexa says with a soft smile that makes Clarke’s heart skip and stutter. “But I swear to God if you say ‘Clarke loves you too’ I’m breaking up with you.”

Clarke laughs, shuffling forward and cuddling into Lexa’s waiting arms. She breathes her in, feeling utterly content with Lexa’s arms now wrapped around her and idly playing with her hair. “I love you too.”

Lexa smiles, and kisses her again.


End file.
